1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of automated grant management systems. In particular, the invention relates to a grant management system in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and life sciences industry.
2. Background
Every year pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other life science companies process and manage thousands of grants provided to individual and institutional applicants. The average top 10 pharmaceutical company spends between $50 and 150 million in grant funding per year. The total market for pharmaceutical grants is estimated to be between $3 and 4 billion. Common grants in life sciences industry include continuing medical education (CME) grants, fellowship grants, sales and marketing grants, sponsorships, charitable contributions, research grants, publication grants, investigator-initiated research proposals (IIRP) and patient education grants. In an IIRP grant, physicians or other healthcare professionals often approach pharmaceutical companies with ideas for research or training using pharmaceutical compounds. In a CME grant, physicians and medical schools often request funding to develop and provide continuing medical education to health care professionals (e.g., physicians, pharmacists and nurse practitioners, etc.). IIRP, CME, charitable and other such grant proposals necessarily go through a process of submission, approval, execution and reconciliation phases.
Management by granting agencies of such grants is not a trivial process, especially considering the numerous procedural and regulatory requirements mandated by governmental agencies. For example, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services publishes a list of those entities that are excluded from receiving grants. Similarly, private accrediting agencies such as the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) also play a role in the life sciences industry in by establishing voluntary accreditation standards. Still further, other regulatory agencies, and even Congress itself, often impose temporary or permanent requirements on life sciences companies in allocating grants.
In addition, numerous different people within the granting organization or commercial sponsor may play a role in grant approval and management. For example, in a pharmaceutical company, Medical Education Team Members, Legal Staff, Ethics & Compliance Staff, Regional Scientific Directors, Medical Directors, Clinical Research Scientists, Clinical Research Managers, Brand Directors, IIRP Coordinators, Contract Managers, etc. may all participate in the grant process.
Conventional grant management still relies heavily on paper proposals and applications, and review procedures are often onerous and inefficient. In addition, conventional systems lack the ability to efficiently produce accurate audit reports similar to those periodically requested by the US government. These error prone processes require a considerable amount of time from multiple resources within the granting organization or commercial sponsor. Existing automated grant management applications still lack key features important to the life science industry. Given the recent advances in web-based business solutions, a need has arisen for entities involved in procuring and granting life science related grants for a grant management system that allows a granting organization or commercial sponsor to receive, review, track, reconcile, analyze and generate reports pertaining to life science related grants through their lifecycle, from grant requestor registration and pre-screening through grant reconciliation and auditing.
The present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers indicate identical or functionally similar elements. Additionally, the left-most digit of a reference number identifies the drawing in which the reference number first appears.